June 2, 2025 • 13 mins
UMG and Def Jam are censoring artists who associate with Drake's rivals, exemplified by their demand to remove Kendrick Lamar's verse from Clipse's upcoming album despite it reportedly not containing any direct disses.
• Clipse's album "Let God Sort Them Out" has been delayed after label demands to censor or remove Kendrick's verse
• Pusha T and No Malice stood firm against censorship, resulting in them being dropped by Def Jam
• The duo secured a distribution deal with Roc Nation after standing their ground
• This situation contradicts claims that UMG is plotting against Drake
• Corporate intervention in hip-hop creates a dangerous precedent for artistic expression
• Drake's industry influence appears to be dictating who other artists can collaborate with
• The music industry is entering an era where labels take sides in personal beefs
• Artists face punishment based on associations rather than actual content
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
yo, what's going on?
We have a?
Um, a special chatterboxepisode today, late to the party
, whatever we want to call it.
Um, usually we wait until themain episode to talk about
(00:23):
pretty much everything, right,but I did want to speak on this
as it's something that's comingout today.
Thank you for listening toanother episode.
We appreciate everybody who'sfollowing and who's been tapping
in with us lately, right, so Idon't want to talk about the
(00:46):
beef between Drake and Kendricktoo much.
We all been trying to move awayfrom it.
A lot of people say thatKendrick is dragging it because
he's the one on tour stillperforming the diss songs.
He's not doing anything elseexcept for performing his hits
though, uh, the diss songs.
He's not doing anything elseexcept for performing his hits,
(01:08):
though.
Um, on the last episode of lateto the party I spoke about let
guy sort them out which is umclips, new album excuse me,
dropping in july, okay, where Iwant to start, all right.
So we had talks of a featurethat Pusha T was waiting on,
(01:29):
right.
Everybody was like, oh, youknow, the album is coming,
they're just waiting on this onefeature, which I still think.
The feature that they wastalking about may be a Jay-Z
verse, but we do haveconfirmation that Kendrick Lamar
is on this new album withEclipse.
Which cool, exciting.
It's good to hear them together.
They've, they've, they'vewrapped together before, also on
(01:51):
a great track, and you knowthey did that.
Now I think with this new albumwe are running to our first
problem with Drake suing problemwith Drake suing UMG.
(02:16):
The problem is not that.
The problem is not only thatDrake is mad because somebody
said something negative abouthim.
It's the problem that noweverything will be relating back
to Kendrick saying somethingabout Drake.
And the reason that I'm talkingabout this is because Pusha T
did an interview and I think itwas with GQ.
I haven't read the whole thingbut I will.
Before this, before our nextepisode, I will try to dig deep
(02:46):
into that a little bit more.
But we have a Kendrick verse.
So this album was supposed tocome out actually last year,
right Sometime last summer whenthey was doing the LV, and then,
you know, pharrell had theLouis Vuitton thing, all that,
whatever right.
The album had to get pushed backdue to Def Jam and UMG, which
(03:12):
is the parent company of Def Jam, asking one of two things
Kendrick to censor his verse orfor the clips to take Kendrick
verse off the song.
I haven't heard the song.
No one had.
I mean, I'm pretty sure peoplehave, but the masses have not
(03:33):
heard the song yet.
But the word that I am hearingis it's not even a dis verse,
he's not dissing anybody, butDef Jam and UMG did not like the
optics of two people who'sbeefing with Drake to be on a
song together.
Yeah, that's weird, right.
(03:59):
So for drake to tell umg Idon't know how it went, I'm just
going off of what some, some,some, some heads, some talking
heads have told, right.
Drake tells umg, hey, we gottaput a stop to this.
Umg goes to def jam office andyo, I think we should do
(04:21):
something about this.
And Def Jam obliges to thenturn to the Clips and say, hey,
we need to censor, we need y'allto censor his track, his verse,
and shout out to the Clips forsaying, no, that's not going to
happen.
Right, but they told the Clips,they told Pusha T and no Malice
that, hey, we need y'all tocensor this man's verses, this
(04:44):
man's verse, or completelyremove his verse from the song.
How crazy does that sound?
This is the road that we'reabout to head down when it comes
to words in music.
Fuck how you feel about Drake,I'm still a fan of Drake.
I still listen to Drake music.
(05:05):
That has nothing to do withthis, though, whether his music
is good or not.
The rabbit hole or the lanethat we are about to go down now
, based off of a battle thatanother man has asked the man to
drop, drop, drop, and then hedrop, and now you're.
(05:25):
You're so in your feelings, notonly are you suing, you're also
trying to get shit to stop.
Where this man eat.
Def Jam says okay, let us talkto Clips, let's talk to Pusha T,
and no Malice.
Pusha T and them say no, right,we're not going to censor it,
(05:46):
we're not going to remove hisverse.
I love that.
We standing on business, right,def Jam.
Then Def Jam and UMG then turnsto Clips and say Well, we're
going to have to drop Clips as aduo.
Pusha T say you drop them,you're going to have to drop me.
On one hand, I love that theystanding on that, because the
(06:10):
thing is, most people care aboutthe hits and how it look.
And nigga, we putting our shitout.
We putting our art out to thepublic.
We putting our shit out.
We putting our, our art out tothe public.
So clips say or push your teeth, say no, if you drop them,
you're going to.
I'm still a solo artist.
So it will do this Def jam.
(06:32):
Like I said, on one hand, Ilove that he's standing on B, I
love that they are standing onbusiness.
This is our art.
On the other hand, you have aDef Jam company who ain't been
shit in years?
Who ain't been shit in years?
You got a Def Jam company thensaying well, you know what,
(06:56):
we'll drop you as a duo and dropyou as a solo artist.
What type of shit is that?
So for everybody who's sayingthat UMG is trying to take Drake
down, this is actually a knockto your argument.
This is actually a knock toyour argument saying that UMG
has plotted this, because UMGwould still try to put this out,
because if it was a diss toDrake or if it was something
(07:19):
that looked bad towards Drake,they would still push it.
Not only did they not push it,they say you know what?
We don't even want y'all on thelabel.
No more.
Now shout out to Pusha T andMalice uh for getting a
distribution deal with RockNation.
Of course Rock Nation is.
(07:40):
You know, jnm going rock.
You know I'm saying nigga.
We we arguing over lyrics to theto the Drake stans.
This is the problem that we,now that we're now in that
companies are now going to startlooking at artists and being
like, because it ain't even.
And the thing is, it's not whatKendrick is saying on a verse.
(08:01):
I have yet to hear the verse.
It's not even what Kendrick issaying on a verse.
It's the optics of Kendrick.
It's the optics of Kendrick andPusha T standing next to each
other after they both havedemolished one of the biggest
artists in the world.
So now we run into that problemin that lane of.
(08:25):
Well, if y'all got a problemwith Drake, I don't know if we
can work with you no more.
That gives me more likeEverybody is looking on the
front end and saying Kendrick isdragging it or so-and-so is
dragging it.
We don't know what's going onbehind the scenes because
obviously Drake tried to getKendrick off of the Like that
(08:49):
song with Future.
They tried to get him to stopdoing Not Like Us.
I love that Kendrick is goingaround still performing Not Like
Us.
I remember me saying on thispodcast with Dodie I remember
saying you know what I want,kendrick, just to stop.
Don't even let this man oh no,fuck that now, because you are
behind the scenes still doingstupid shit, you still moving
(09:12):
like a bitch.
You still moving like a bitch.
Like we, on one hand, don'twant lyrics used in court, we
don't want the labels to be ableto stop what we saying, and we
got free speech and all of this,but if it comes to the beloved
(09:32):
Drake, we have to back back.
This is what makes listening toDrake kind of cringy at times,
and this is why listening toDrake with the melodies crew,
love, controller, family,closest shit like that it sounds
(09:53):
better than listening to himtrying to act tough because it
looked different.
Now, one of my favorite songsnewer.
One of my newer favorite songsfrom drake is knife talk.
All right, it's so hard tolisten to knife talk.
I love give me a hug, but it'sso hard to listen to give me a
(10:14):
hug.
You know I'm saying it's just,it's just hard.
I was listening to one of hissongs the other day where where
drake talks about he twistingfingers for blah, blah, you
ain't twisting man.
This is.
This is why.
This is why certain people getalong with or want to get along
(10:37):
for to get along with Drake,because we bitches too, but no,
we just.
I think we are about to enterinto a very interesting Future
when it comes to rap beefsfuture when it comes to rap
(11:01):
beefs and everybody like theywon't not everybody, but I've
seen somebody's talking aboutsome well, drake gonna be
throwing shots again on his newalbum.
Why are you throwing shotsright now?
Now I'm in a position where youcan throw all the shots you
want family.
It's not even worth it.
You know the niggas in the hoodor the niggas in the
neighborhood where you from thatif you beat him up, you don't
(11:21):
really get no points.
It don't look good on you.
That's what Drake is becomingbe a pop star.
Go get your hits, man.
Yes, go go ahead and claim thatyou bigger and better than
Michael Jackson has ever been,which is fucking 80.
That's just crazy to say.
But go ahead and do that,because now, if I battle against
you, I don't get nothing fromit.
(11:42):
Either I'm going to end up incourt or, like if I win, I'm
just going to end up into some.
I was listening to the BrilliantIdiots podcast and Charlamagne
said that this man put gave somefolks the green light to do
something to Charlamagne.
But Charlamagne, being coolwith certain people, he got the
(12:07):
heads up.
That's what you doing off ofwords, my nigga.
Now I like on On the oppositeend of that.
I don't see how Thug Lil Baby,future, um, or whoever Still
looks at you like, yeah, that'sstill my nigga, though he gonna
(12:27):
I'ma ride for it like I'ma Backoff of you.
That's just crazy, that's justa.
I just wanted to touch on thatfor a second because think about
that, umg, let Clips go as agroup.
Also, let Pusha T go as a groupbecause they didn't want to
(12:51):
take Kendrick Lamar verse off asong.
And yet, and still still, y'allbelieve UMG has Kendrick in a
back pocket to try to take downDrake.
That nigga just lost the battleand now UMG and stupid ass Def
Jam are playing into the gamesof.
(13:13):
We must censor you, make itmake sense.
I just wanted to tell y'allwhat's going on in the industry
of hip hop right now.
In the industry of hip hopright now.
(13:35):
In the industry of hip hopright now.
Thank you for listening toanother event session of
chatterbox.
I'm out.
yo, what's going on?
We have a?
Um, a special chatterboxepisode today, late to the party
, whatever we want to call it.
Um, usually we wait until themain episode to talk about
(00:23):
pretty much everything, right,but I did want to speak on this
as it's something that's comingout today.
Thank you for listening toanother episode.
We appreciate everybody who'sfollowing and who's been tapping
in with us lately, right, so Idon't want to talk about the
(00:46):
beef between Drake and Kendricktoo much.
We all been trying to move awayfrom it.
A lot of people say thatKendrick is dragging it because
he's the one on tour stillperforming the diss songs.
He's not doing anything elseexcept for performing his hits
though, uh, the diss songs.
He's not doing anything elseexcept for performing his hits,
(01:08):
though.
Um, on the last episode of lateto the party I spoke about let
guy sort them out which is umclips, new album excuse me,
dropping in july, okay, where Iwant to start, all right.
So we had talks of a featurethat Pusha T was waiting on,
(01:29):
right.
Everybody was like, oh, youknow, the album is coming,
they're just waiting on this onefeature, which I still think.
The feature that they wastalking about may be a Jay-Z
verse, but we do haveconfirmation that Kendrick Lamar
is on this new album withEclipse.
Which cool, exciting.
It's good to hear them together.
They've, they've, they'vewrapped together before, also on
(01:51):
a great track, and you knowthey did that.
Now I think with this new albumwe are running to our first
problem with Drake suing problemwith Drake suing UMG.
(02:16):
The problem is not that.
The problem is not only thatDrake is mad because somebody
said something negative abouthim.
It's the problem that noweverything will be relating back
to Kendrick saying somethingabout Drake.
And the reason that I'm talkingabout this is because Pusha T
did an interview and I think itwas with GQ.
I haven't read the whole thingbut I will.
Before this, before our nextepisode, I will try to dig deep
(02:46):
into that a little bit more.
But we have a Kendrick verse.
So this album was supposed tocome out actually last year,
right Sometime last summer whenthey was doing the LV, and then,
you know, pharrell had theLouis Vuitton thing, all that,
whatever right.
The album had to get pushed backdue to Def Jam and UMG, which
(03:12):
is the parent company of Def Jam, asking one of two things
Kendrick to censor his verse orfor the clips to take Kendrick
verse off the song.
I haven't heard the song.
No one had.
I mean, I'm pretty sure peoplehave, but the masses have not
(03:33):
heard the song yet.
But the word that I am hearingis it's not even a dis verse,
he's not dissing anybody, butDef Jam and UMG did not like the
optics of two people who'sbeefing with Drake to be on a
song together.
Yeah, that's weird, right.
(03:59):
So for drake to tell umg Idon't know how it went, I'm just
going off of what some, some,some, some heads, some talking
heads have told, right.
Drake tells umg, hey, we gottaput a stop to this.
Umg goes to def jam office andyo, I think we should do
(04:21):
something about this.
And Def Jam obliges to thenturn to the Clips and say, hey,
we need to censor, we need y'allto censor his track, his verse,
and shout out to the Clips forsaying, no, that's not going to
happen.
Right, but they told the Clips,they told Pusha T and no Malice
that, hey, we need y'all tocensor this man's verses, this
(04:44):
man's verse, or completelyremove his verse from the song.
How crazy does that sound?
This is the road that we'reabout to head down when it comes
to words in music.
Fuck how you feel about Drake,I'm still a fan of Drake.
I still listen to Drake music.
(05:05):
That has nothing to do withthis, though, whether his music
is good or not.
The rabbit hole or the lanethat we are about to go down now
, based off of a battle thatanother man has asked the man to
drop, drop, drop, and then hedrop, and now you're.
(05:25):
You're so in your feelings, notonly are you suing, you're also
trying to get shit to stop.
Where this man eat.
Def Jam says okay, let us talkto Clips, let's talk to Pusha T,
and no Malice.
Pusha T and them say no, right,we're not going to censor it,
(05:46):
we're not going to remove hisverse.
I love that.
We standing on business, right,def Jam.
Then Def Jam and UMG then turnsto Clips and say Well, we're
going to have to drop Clips as aduo.
Pusha T say you drop them,you're going to have to drop me.
On one hand, I love that theystanding on that, because the
(06:10):
thing is, most people care aboutthe hits and how it look.
And nigga, we putting our shitout.
We putting our art out to thepublic.
We putting our shit out.
We putting our, our art out tothe public.
So clips say or push your teeth, say no, if you drop them,
you're going to.
I'm still a solo artist.
So it will do this Def jam.
(06:32):
Like I said, on one hand, Ilove that he's standing on B, I
love that they are standing onbusiness.
This is our art.
On the other hand, you have aDef Jam company who ain't been
shit in years?
Who ain't been shit in years?
You got a Def Jam company thensaying well, you know what,
(06:56):
we'll drop you as a duo and dropyou as a solo artist.
What type of shit is that?
So for everybody who's sayingthat UMG is trying to take Drake
down, this is actually a knockto your argument.
This is actually a knock toyour argument saying that UMG
has plotted this, because UMGwould still try to put this out,
because if it was a diss toDrake or if it was something
(07:19):
that looked bad towards Drake,they would still push it.
Not only did they not push it,they say you know what?
We don't even want y'all on thelabel.
No more.
Now shout out to Pusha T andMalice uh for getting a
distribution deal with RockNation.
Of course Rock Nation is.
(07:40):
You know, jnm going rock.
You know I'm saying nigga.
We we arguing over lyrics to theto the Drake stans.
This is the problem that we,now that we're now in that
companies are now going to startlooking at artists and being
like, because it ain't even.
And the thing is, it's not whatKendrick is saying on a verse.
(08:01):
I have yet to hear the verse.
It's not even what Kendrick issaying on a verse.
It's the optics of Kendrick.
It's the optics of Kendrick andPusha T standing next to each
other after they both havedemolished one of the biggest
artists in the world.
So now we run into that problemin that lane of.
(08:25):
Well, if y'all got a problemwith Drake, I don't know if we
can work with you no more.
That gives me more likeEverybody is looking on the
front end and saying Kendrick isdragging it or so-and-so is
dragging it.
We don't know what's going onbehind the scenes because
obviously Drake tried to getKendrick off of the Like that
(08:49):
song with Future.
They tried to get him to stopdoing Not Like Us.
I love that Kendrick is goingaround still performing Not Like
Us.
I remember me saying on thispodcast with Dodie I remember
saying you know what I want,kendrick, just to stop.
Don't even let this man oh no,fuck that now, because you are
behind the scenes still doingstupid shit, you still moving
(09:12):
like a bitch.
You still moving like a bitch.
Like we, on one hand, don'twant lyrics used in court, we
don't want the labels to be ableto stop what we saying, and we
got free speech and all of this,but if it comes to the beloved
(09:32):
Drake, we have to back back.
This is what makes listening toDrake kind of cringy at times,
and this is why listening toDrake with the melodies crew,
love, controller, family,closest shit like that it sounds
(09:53):
better than listening to himtrying to act tough because it
looked different.
Now, one of my favorite songsnewer.
One of my newer favorite songsfrom drake is knife talk.
All right, it's so hard tolisten to knife talk.
I love give me a hug, but it'sso hard to listen to give me a
(10:14):
hug.
You know I'm saying it's just,it's just hard.
I was listening to one of hissongs the other day where where
drake talks about he twistingfingers for blah, blah, you
ain't twisting man.
This is.
This is why.
This is why certain people getalong with or want to get along
(10:37):
for to get along with Drake,because we bitches too, but no,
we just.
I think we are about to enterinto a very interesting Future
when it comes to rap beefsfuture when it comes to rap
(11:01):
beefs and everybody like theywon't not everybody, but I've
seen somebody's talking aboutsome well, drake gonna be
throwing shots again on his newalbum.
Why are you throwing shotsright now?
Now I'm in a position where youcan throw all the shots you
want family.
It's not even worth it.
You know the niggas in the hoodor the niggas in the
neighborhood where you from thatif you beat him up, you don't
(11:21):
really get no points.
It don't look good on you.
That's what Drake is becomingbe a pop star.
Go get your hits, man.
Yes, go go ahead and claim thatyou bigger and better than
Michael Jackson has ever been,which is fucking 80.
That's just crazy to say.
But go ahead and do that,because now, if I battle against
you, I don't get nothing fromit.
(11:42):
Either I'm going to end up incourt or, like if I win, I'm
just going to end up into some.
I was listening to the BrilliantIdiots podcast and Charlamagne
said that this man put gave somefolks the green light to do
something to Charlamagne.
But Charlamagne, being coolwith certain people, he got the
(12:07):
heads up.
That's what you doing off ofwords, my nigga.
Now I like on On the oppositeend of that.
I don't see how Thug Lil Baby,future, um, or whoever Still
looks at you like, yeah, that'sstill my nigga, though he gonna
(12:27):
I'ma ride for it like I'ma Backoff of you.
That's just crazy, that's justa.
I just wanted to touch on thatfor a second because think about
that, umg, let Clips go as agroup.
Also, let Pusha T go as a groupbecause they didn't want to
(12:51):
take Kendrick Lamar verse off asong.
And yet, and still still, y'allbelieve UMG has Kendrick in a
back pocket to try to take downDrake.
That nigga just lost the battleand now UMG and stupid ass Def
Jam are playing into the gamesof.
(13:13):
We must censor you, make itmake sense.
I just wanted to tell y'allwhat's going on in the industry
of hip hop right now.
In the industry of hip hopright now.
(13:35):
In the industry of hip hopright now.
Thank you for listening toanother event session of
chatterbox.
I'm out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.